Keeping the postal service up & running, one stamp at a time. Usually silly, sometimes cranky, occasionally a mix of the two.

England

Happy New Year! To mark the occasion, I send these cool Snoopy postcards to my Snoopy-loving postpals in England, Japan, & the U.S.

Nengajō is a huge deal in Japan–but just try finding New Year’s postcards (or even standard greeting cards) here in the U.S.! In fact, I had to get these through a Japan-based e-tailer. I sure do wish the custom would catch on here.

13 postcards this time, all toon-related. Still playing catch-up, so while some of these are newly-received, some came in months & months ago. We have a combination of Postcard Forum tags, and incomings from postal pals of mine. Let’s get started, so we can get finished!

I love this Disney duck art, with Christmas greetings in Swedish. It came to me from Finland via Postcrossing Forum. I remember it was a very confusing parcel to receive: an envelope filled with many postcards, each with a tiny message denoting a different Postcrossing tag. This user had tagged me many times in different threads, all at once, did not message me to let me know, and surprised me with all of this. I keep track of whom I’ve tagged (since my memory is not so good), so that I do not overdo tagging the same person. In any case, though, I do love this postcard.

Hey, Doraemon! The card came to me from Indonesia, and the stamps & stickers tie right in, so you’ll have to scroll down & check them out. The sender writes:

Doraemon is my favorite cartoon too because they are funny and taught us about friendship. My fave character is Nobita & Shisuka.

Peanuts time! Cindi in Hawaii knows that I love the oldest versions of the characters, & she has sent me two of my favorite cards, featuring Pigpen, Lucy, & Schroeder. The scans of the backs down below show a beautiful patchwork of related stamps & stickers.

An extra serving of Peanuts, from a post-pal in Tokyo, Japan:

I love Spirited Away. Just saw it on the big screen again a few months ago for one of those two-night return engagements that happen sometimes, and I was blown away all over again. This card came to me from the same postcard pal as the one right above it.

Mickey and his band also came to me from Japan, in a tag in which we were to list the characters we’d like to receive. Horace Horsecollar was on my list, and as you’ll see at the bottom of the post, the card’s sender was surprised by my obscure choices.

Totoro here came to me from Russia, but the sender isn’t talking about Ghibli:

When I was a child, on TV on Saturday morning showed Disney cartoons. One of my favorites was Chip ‘n Dale.

The postcard teeming with Misters Men & Little Misses came to me from yet another postcard pal, this one in Brighton, England. Don’t miss the matching stamps down below!

The kitty packing heat was sent to me from Seattle, Washington, and the sender writes:

I don’t know the cat on the front of this card, but Strawberry Shortcake was a favorite of mine, back in the day.

She mentions Ms. Shortcake because she affixed a sticker of that character on the back of the card. You’ll not see her in this post, because by this time I had scanning fatigue, and that kind of thing just doesn’t make the cut. I’ll just share that it was an older version of the character, in shorts, flip-flops, and a floppy beach hat.

This Hello Kitty card did make the cut. It’s yet another card from Japan, and the back has great stickers, stamps & washi tape which, along with the card’s message, you can see below.

These funny little sea creatures came from Russia. The sender tells me that she loves Kinder toys, and that she used to play with them with her older sister when she was a child.

That little mouse came to me from Berlin, Germany, and the sender tells me:

I’m a 28 year old Russian girl, moved to Germany recently. Before that I spent 2.5 years in Moscow working as an IT engineer. Now I live in the center of Berlin, Mitte district. My office is in crazy and fancy Kreuzberg! There is a cool graffiti on our office wall: Putin, Obama, and Merkel closing mouth, eyes, and ears!

Hey, I found that piece of street art!

I feel like this came from a more innocent time.

Let’s finally get to the previously mentioned stamps, stickers, washi tape, and messages. So much good stuff!

I love, love, love that little squirrel sticker. The pair of cats on blue are awesome, too.

I’m more grossed out by this cereal box panel, sent to me from Bad Meinberg, Germany, in a food package postcard tag

The sender writes about the cereal:

It’s a new edition because it is baked with popcorn. It tastes good but not as good as I expect it. Do you have similar cereal combinations in the USA?

No–or at least not that I know of. What is grossing me out is that once I read the cereal brand is “Vitalis,” it sparked some basic relic of information in my brain (which I confirmed with an internet search): “Vitalis” was a gross hair product men used to use in the 1970s. Now I know why the cereal isn’t as good as that guy expected.

I am SO behind on posting postcards I’ve received. I grabbed a big handful to scan, and the main theme for most of them seems to be “unwanted cards.” We’ll soon get to what that’s all about, but I want to be sure to start with two cards I really do like! Both of them found their way to me in Postcrossing Forum tags.

I just love this sketch of a Hong Kong storefront & apartments; it really takes me there! The sender asks, “have you tried egg tart before? It has to be my favorite Hong Kong snacks. California has always been somewhere I desperately want to visit, and hopefully I can visit there soon!”

That breathtaking mountain view came to me from Shaanxi, China, and the sender tells me it is called Hua Mountain, and “it’s a little dangerous to climb, but because of the wonderful scenery, lots of people still trying and enjoy it.”

Next up, the kitty classroom, comes to me from Belarus, thanks to a Postcrossing Forum “favorites” tag. I’m so forgetful, I didn’t even remember having marked it as a favorite. Good thing to check those once in a while!

Another cat, this one riding a tortoise, and it comes to me from France as a regular Postcrossing card. The sender’s writing is quite difficult to decipher, which is a lesson to me, even though I THINK my printing is neat, that I could stand to try harder. I thought she wrote that she is in the “Louie Valley,” but a consult with Ask Jeeves (or whomever it is running the internet these days) let me know she probably meant Loire Valley. Also, if I’m reading this correctly, she hopes to open a bed & breakfast next summer. Or it could be that she just got back from a waterslide with Santa–I just don’t know. Well, I do know I prefer the latter.

These next 3 cards all came my way via swap-bot. The big building is the Fine Arts Gallery in San Diego, California–but the card was sent to me from a swapper in the state of Georgia.

I think the Santorini, Greece, card actually came to me from that locale. The sender wrote:

“You can walk to the top. To get to the volcano you can get a small local boat to take you straight there. Otherwise you can take a tour that includes Thirasía. When you get to the top, the view of Santorini is incredible! This is must place to visit if you here. You can jump into the warm springs if you want.”

The last card of that trio is the boat on the river. The card was sent by a swapper in Illinois. She sent it in a “recycled postcard” trade, but if she did indeed but a new backing on a card she previously received, I sure couldn’t tell–and I picked away at 3 of the 4 corners! When I do these, I always like to leave the original stamps exposed (but on the bottom left of the new backing), as a bonus for the new recipient. Anyhow, this card’s sender says the scene pictured is the Mississippi River, a sight she’s never seen in person, but that she imagines herself taking “an old time paddle wheel river boat ride down this river, if they still exist.” They do. No, I’ve not been on the Mississippi, but more than once, I HAVE ridden a riverboat on the Rivers of America.

There’s a tag on Postcrossing Forum called “The Card You Want to Get Rid of,” and if I’d had this next card, I’d have sent it off in this trade, too! I might just send it out in the next “recycled postcard” trade in which I participate. The sender is in Tampere, Finland, and she told me, “I find this tag superb; it’s hard to find a suitable recipient to every postcard, but every postcard deserves to travel.”

Another postcard I’d be happy to get rid of is the “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt” card–that comes from Sheffield, England, in a swap-bot trade. The sender wrote the card on July 11, telling me: “right now it is nearly 10 a.m. and it’s raining, and probably won’t stop for the rest of the day. Typical UK!”

Still more cards getting no love: the trio below were sent to me together from Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada, in a swap-bot “I Don’t Want These Postcards” exchange. I’ll have to post them in my page of cars available for trades! That one that looks like a b&w “magic eye” game will probably have to go out in another round of these “I don’t want it” tags!

This next card came my way from Graz, Austria, in the “recycled postcard” tag I’ve been mentioning, and I may just have scanned & posted the other side here before, but I didn’t mark it as such, so either way–here we go. In this tag, a person is supposed to slap a new backing on a postcard they received from someone else, & then send it to their assigned partner. Let this serve as a warning that all glue sticks are not created equal; there was no postcard attached to this backing. When you flip it over, all you see is shiny streaks. In any case, I thought you might enjoy reading the hand-written recipe.

Well, it’s just about stamp time, so let me ask you now: what are your favorite cards this time? Which ones would you first choose to send off in a trade of recycled or “I don’t want this” cards? Remember, one good use of a postcard you don’t think anyone else will love, is as a vehicle to send a message to your elected representatives!

Let’s start with Good Ol’ Snoopy Brown. I’ve mentioned many times in this space the lack of Snoopy/Peanuts cards here in the U.S. Despite being the birthplace of the comic strip, and although Peanuts greeting cards seem to be sold absolutely everywhere (even in supermarkets), the postcards are just not found unless you go to the source: the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa.

That being the case, I was thrilled to find a book of 1970’s-era Snoopy postcards on sale online!

Several have already been dispatched, including to Peanuts-loving pen-pals of mine in Hawaii, Tokyo, & England (I know I didn’t write that trio out as an equal set, yes). Those cards (and one to Taoyuan, Taiwan, for a Postcrossing Forum tag) went out as postcards should, with a note & a stamp on the back, & dropped into a mailbox. The next one here went out to a Postcrossing Forum regular in Finland who says that she gives Snoopy postcards to a friend, so she’d like hers in an envelope. Okay, fine–I made an envelope:

She also likes to collect stamps, so since I was already throwing stuff into an envelope, I added some stamps from my incoming mail.

The foggy view of Golden Gate Bridge was chosen by someone in Berlin, Germany, in a Postcrossing Forum “show the card you offer” tag. I’m glad I had something she liked.

To Berlin & St. Petersburg

Okay, let’s get into the Russia hack scandal story I’ve just made up (or unearthed inadvertently, who knows). I have fallen way behind on “official” cards traveling out via Postcrossing Forum & Postcard United: between the two sites, I had only 1 card traveling (I think I can have around 30 at this point if I chose to). Yes, I’m sending a lot of cards out, but it’s mainly via Postcrossing Forum, which offers so many different options that I’ve just found it the more fun way to go. The problem I have with the main focus of the two sites is that Postcrossing Forum seems to send me constantly to just the same 3-4 countries, and Postcard United’s algorithm is so rough that there are repeat encounters with the same people, and I’m being paired within my own country.

Anyhow, I decided to send some cards out again via the two sites, so started asking to be assigned addresses:

Click 1–Postcrossing: Saint Petersburg, RUSSIA. Of course. Decided to try my luck next at the other site.

Click 2–Postcard United: Moscow, RUSSIA. Why, I oughta…

Click 3–Postcard United: Krasnodar, RUSSIA. What?!? I claim shenanigans. I’m moving back to the other site.

Click 4–Postcrossing: Alkmaar, Netherlands. Fine. I then quit while I was ahead. We’ll see when I click on those “send a postcard” buttons again. This is supposed to be relaxing.

A sweetened pickle to the Netherlands, and the rest to Russia.

Moving on from the Eastern European drama… the pair of cards pictured next went off to China, in Postcrossing Forum tags. The aerial view of Hearst Castle (another card I replenished during my recent postcard-gathering road trip) is headed toward a food safety major in Beijing, who expressed his wishes for anything local to the sender: “local buildings…anything local is welcome!” If by local, he meant anything in the same state, this place 3 hours or so away from me is local!

The pancakes, which I received recently from a Postcard Uniter, go to Heifei, Anhui, China, in a food postcard trade. The recipient is a chemistry student who says he loves travel, and receiving food postcards.

Finally, this multi-zoned California map card (part of my recent haul) went off to Hong Kong, to someone hoping for map cards. I told her that within just a couple of months, I will have traveled to every segment on the left sided of the card within this calendar year. I do love coastal trips!

Now a look at stamps, stickers, washi tape, & stuff–do you have any favorites down here? Behold the new USPS stamp release, Delicioso, which “celebrates the influence of Central and South American, Mexican, and Caribbean foods and flavors on American cuisine.” And I always love the shorebird & sea shell postcard stamp sets.

This time around, I’m sharing some recently-arrived cards, as well as some much older ones that (as far as I know) I haven’t shared previously. Keeping track is hard!

The “World Famous Brighton Rock” card came from a postal pal in Brighton, Englandtoday–and today I learned “Brighton Rock!” I had to look that up online, because my friend was actually lamenting a familiar situation:

“As for Peanuts postcards, I’m no closer to finding any of them here, so I’ve had to cheat and make my own with stickers that I found in New York last month. Quite a few of the Hallmark shops where I would normally buy Snoopy stuff from had either shut down or no longer stocked Peanuts merchandise, which was a bit disappointing, but didn’t ruin my vacation!”

Another postal pal, Cindi in Hawaii, knows exactly how to get Peanuts postcards: throw down for mail order from the Charles M. Schulz museum in California! I love this new “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night” Snoopy card. Make sure you check in at the bottom of this post, for all of the wonderful stamps, stickers, & washi tape from the card’s back side.

The next card shows three guys I am always very, very, happy to see: The Three Caballeros. It was sent to me from Seattle, Washington, at the end of 2015 for a Postcrossing Forum “request a Disney card” tag, and I haven’t marked it as logged in this space. The sender drew a fun rubber ducky pic on the back, so be sure to scroll down for that.

Second set of cards begins with another card postmarked in December of 2015, from a Postcrosser in Hong Kong. She wrote:

“This is a new shop that just opened near my apartment in Hong Kong, and they were giving out some nice postcards. I hope you enjoyed some dim sum and egg tarts in Hong Kong. Egg tarts are my favorite! Also egg waffles. So good!”

I did indeed enjoy some dim sum while in HK (don’t recall if egg tarts were part of it), and I was in fact looking to buy an egg waffle maker while I was in town! That didn’t happen, but around the time I received this card, I received one as a gift! Made some egg waffles just last week, in fact.

That scary, scary monkey card might just have to get sent off to someone else. It came my way from the Netherlands in a Postcrossing Forum “ugly postcard” trade. I think this, and 2 or 3 other cards from today’s entry, had been serving as bookmarks! My poor book!

The snowy card next to the monkey is from a Postcrosser in Japan. This only goes back to September of 2016. The sender told me she lives in a small town in the mountains, and she doesn’t have any beach cards, so she decided to send me a snow card.

The last set starts with another snow card, this one recently received from Romaniavia Postcard United. The sender tells me:

“I love to spend time in the countryside, where life seems not to have changed in ages.”

We’ve got a food package next, this from another Postcrossing Forum tag, and sent to me from someone in Raleigh, North Carolina, who writes:

“My husband loves lychee and I love mochi. These were delicious. Ever had them? My parents tease me for loving mochi so much. It’s called dduk in Korean. They call me a dduk-bo which is essentially a person who loves dduk. Rice cakes freeze pretty well.

I think it was the weekend before I received this card last month that I’d just been buying fresh mochi treats in San Jose’s Japantown, so this was very timely.

Final card is another from who-knows-how-long-ago, a Postcrossing incoming from Mexico. There were, as you will see, Doraemon stickers on the back, and the sender explained:

“Here are a couple of Doraemon stickers I was given in Hong Kong at supermarket. Very nice place and yummy food! Anyways, this postcard is from my hometown, we have yummy food, too!”

Okay, that’s it for the fronts. I’ll mark them as logged now, so you won’t have to be bothered with them again. Now poke around the backsides–so many amazing finds down there this time!

A dozen outgoing cards to share this time, and lots of variety. Make sure to check out all of the stamps, stamps, stickers, washi tape, & weather doodles at the end!

But before we end, we begin. And we begin with some food recently detailed in another post. This portion went out to Alamo, Texas, in a swap-bot trade of ad/food postcards.

California’s Grapevine–a very yawny route–went to Macau, in a Postcard United draw. I don’t remember sending to or receiving from Macau before, but that’s all changed now. A day after I drew this user’s name, I RECEIVED a postcard from her! This is not the 1st time that this has happened to me on Postcard United. Do you use the site, and has this happened to you?

The California state map with the gigantic surfer went to Schiffdorf, Germany in a Postcrossing trade in which we were to send the person we tagged a card from among those they had marked as favorites. This was my very last state map postcard! It’s a crying shame, because for some reason, a whole lot of postcarders seem to love & collect map cards. I even took a day trip to touristy Monterey, California, last week, in part to restock on California map cards. I popped into SO many stores selling cards–one of them had a huge wall of cards–and I encountered ZERO map cards. I’ll be taking an overnight trip up the coast this weekend, & see what I find.

Next set of 3! The “Keep Surfing, Dummies” shark swam off to Lynnfield, Massachusetts, in a Postcrossing Forum trade where partners choose the card they would like from those in an album the previous tagger has posted. Scroll down & I’m sure you’ll be able to identify the card’s backside, seriously themed with oceany stamps, stickers, washi tape–and even a lurking shark!

The very bored-looking reader went to Glasgow, Scotland in another favorites tag. This Postcrosser’s profile mustn’t have given me too much to work with, because I behaved like a scoundrel & wrote about the weather. To be fair, California weather has been extraordinary lately: 101, a major state highway, was completely closed down in southern San Jose due to flooding. Heck, animals at the city’s zoo had to be moved.

Peanuts! That’s off to Dongshan County, Yilan, Taiwan in another Postcrossing Forum trade. That one was all about cards going to & from that country, so I’m happy to say another Taiwanese Postcrosser will soon be sending me a card.

Next set of 3, and aren’t those otters beautiful? Every once in a while–and a couple of times recently–a wild otter will hop up to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s great tide pool exhibit, give birth, and hang out for a day or two before hauling back out with her new pup. This card, and several other otter cards purchased at the aquarium, ended up being the only postcards I purchased during my day trip I mentioned earlier in the post. This card went to my post pal in Hawaii!

Kitty in pearls went to Tokyo, Japan in yet another Postcrossing Forum tag. Yes, I love those trades. You should check them out, if you never have.

Another beautiful kitty, the tiger, went to Poughkeepsie, New York, for a swap-bot trade of “beachy” postcards.

The last trio of postcards here go out in a pair of Disney-related swap-bot trades.

Beauty & the Beast are on their way to to a trader in Metairie, Lousiana, who might have the most beefed-up swap-bot profile (or any profile, for that matter) that I have ever seen. Music, books, movies, TV, plus her Hogwarts house AND plenty of writing prompts for would-be correspondents–these are just for starters! I enjoyed her list of dislikes, perhaps most of all this section:

“misspelling (stationery includes envelopes; stationary means affixed 🙂 and poor grammar (should have; a lot; lack of commas in direct address; don’t even get me started on it’s and its or they’re, there, and their :(“

Rapunzel’s prison should end up in Sion, Valais, Switzerland; and Snow White & friends went to Brighton, Sussex, England.

Okay, time to look at all of those backsides! If you look closely, you will see a few changes in weather in the time I was preparing these cards.

Okay, here comes the back of that shark card I shared…

Oh, it was really windy when I prepared the Disney cards. I created a new weather doodle! Also, a few days before writing these cards, I had been to San Jose’s Japantown, where I bought a sheet of silly sushi stickers, which I used on all 3 of these cards.

DONE! What do you think? What are your favorite cards/stickers/whatever this time around? And how much do you want to bet I will never see another California map card out in the wild again?

Some incomings this time via Postcrossing, swap-bot, & a post pal–let’s start with the post pal, who is in Tokyo, Japan, and created this cool envelope.

Inside, she wrote to me on two postcards.

She wrote a little bit about the style of art, & her feelings on it:

“Do you have interest in ukiyo-e? When I went to book store a few days ago, I found a postcards booklet of Hokusai Katsushika. Actually, I didn’t watch them very much. I thought ukiyo-e was very old, these are NOT cute. Moreover I don’t like human or mountains very much. I found flowers, bird and some interesting art in this book.”

She put both of those cards, and a teabag (“I’m currently drinking it everyday”) in the envelope–here’s the tea package, & the back side of the envelope.

The Where’s Waldo card came to me from somewhere around Birmingham, Alabama, thanks to a swap-bot trade. the sender shared a Groucho Marx quote: “I intend to live forever, or die trying!” I appreciate a postcard-sized Where’s Waldo scene: I was actually able to find him!

Oof–then we have the peacock feathers. No, no–it’s a nice enough card (it came to me from Hereford, England, via Postcrossing), but have a look at the back, please.

Wacky. And not in a fun way, at least not for me.

Needless to say, I didn’t understand a word of it. I know that a fellow blogger I follow here on WordPress also received a card from this user, but I don’t remember whom, I’m sorry. I tried finding out more about this user, and I gather it’s some retired guy. I don’t know what he feels he is getting out of the service, but I have to assume it’s all on the receiving end. Okay, what’s next? Is this the old Microsoft Clippy?

The card came to me from Germany via Postcrossing, and the sender tells me she works in a big financial firm during the day, and outside of that she’s a honey professional!

“Beekeeping is family tradition for more than 100 years and I’m proud to be a part of it. In 2016 we got a price for the good quality of our honey.”

Something less tasteful up next: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace! I got that from the Orlando, Florida area, thanks to a Postcrossing Forum movie tag. The sender writes:

“Despite this being generally a pretty terrible movie in my opinion it’s actually got my favorite Star Wars character in it–Qui-Gon Jinn. I really love him and wish he hadn’t died.”

Sorry if I just gave out a spoiler there, but honestly: if you haven’t seen the film: no need.

I have some good ones to record this time, maybe especially Donald Duck & the load of toys!

I don’t think Donald gets drawn any better than he does in the creation of comics for the European market. This postcard came to me from Germany, thanks to a Postcrossing Forum tag, and the art is beautiful! The sender clearly took a look through my Postcrossing Favorites.

Another person who knows what I like is my post pal in England, who tells me she thought of me when she spotted the toy-jammed card in a gift shop at a railway station. Even better are the Mr. Men & Little Miss stamps she affixed to the back (shared below)!

The gigantic crystal ball in Dalian, China’s Friendship Circle must be an amazing thing to see at night. I received that thanks to another Postcrossing Forum tag, from a sender who says he likes collecting postcards & mint stamps. As for me, if I were to eat stamps, I’d prefer they be chocolate.

Speaking of chocolate–look, POCKY! It’s another swap-bot upcycled cardboard card, and it’s from a sender in Canada who tells me:

“At our local 7-11 is a surprisingly large selection of imported snacks. Usually, it’s things like Crunchies or nori crackers, but we occasionally get special Pocky snacks or limited edition Caplicos. These Almond Crush Pocky snacks are pretty good, but I think it would have been better with dark chocolate. That said, it’s a very attractive box!”

Certainly better with dark chocolate–that’s the kind of Pocky I like! By the way, occasionally one of my local Asian supermarkets will have a Pocky promotion, with people there to give out samples of the many different flavors, and even give away huge inflatable toy Pocky sticks that can be banged together to make a lot of noise! No, I have not adopted one of those–yet.

Postcard United time: The architect beaver comes from Sweden. The sender writes:

“Mr. Castor doing woodwork? These books are written by Lars Klinting and are very popular in many countries, not only here in Sweden. Castor is a beaver, as you can see, often a very handy one.”

I looked all of this up online, and eventually found that before becoming an author/illustrator, Lars Klinting was himself an achitect. Also, as you can see clearly illustrated on his Amazon page, this character Castor took on the English name of Bruno–before changing it to Harvey!

Then we’ve got those gnomes, who I am definitely mailing off to my friend who actually likes these creatures. That’s a Postcrossing card from Tallinn, Estonia, and the sender told me that on New Year’s Day, “the weather outside is unfamiliar warm in the winter to +6°C, no snow!” Well, brrr.

That was a really, really good round of stamps. Now, on to the postcards. Let’s start with some FOOD!

Two delicious servings from Taiwan. First the pinball-style image, and you can’t tell from the scan, but the words “Taiwan’s delicacies” and the little circles by each item and a shiny silver-colored finish. The sender writes:

“Greetings from Taiwan!! This card is about Taiwanese food in ‘night market.’ They are really delicious, you must try if you have chance!! Welcome to Taiwan!!”

I can’t wait.

That card was from someone who had drawn my name via Postcard United. The next delicious Taiwan card is from someone who drew me on Postcrossing, and she tells me:

“Glad to send a postcard to you via Postcrossing this great project. I really so like collecting postcards and stamps. I selected this drawing card with Taiwanese foods. 🙂 Do hope you will like it.”

I do!

More food from Asia–in that Assam Prawn card from a Postcard United member in Malaysia. The card was printed to promote a program on the National Geographic Channel called “A Peranakan Heritage: Gok’s Chinese Takeaway, Malaysia.” I gotta find that online & watch it. As the card describes the dish, “the assam prawn is a classic Peranakan dish and is usually cooked in tamarind paste.” The sender writes:

“Hello! Welcome to visit Malaysia. We have a lot of street food and local multi variety food.”

Okay, now I want to go to Asia & eat. Peranakan food is so delicious, have you ever tried it? I’m trying to think whether I’ll have the energy for a cooking project this weekend…

Next up, from Japan, & thanks to a Postcrossing Forum trade, is this wonderful mass of Sanrio characters, anchored at top center by my buddy Badtz Maru!

All the flowers were originally adorning the cover of a box of postcards, and thanks to a swap-bot trade, were upcycled into a postcard & sent to me from Malaysia.

The snowy, woody, lantern scene came from a Postcard Uniter in Russia. The sender says:

“Greetings from Russia, Urals. I live near Yekaterinburg with my family. Today cold (-15 C) and snow. Merry Christmas to you.”

Oh, my. I’m freezing right here in the S.F. Bay Area, and then I get a postcard that brings me chills!

Another snowy scene, made worse by clowns! That’s a card purchased in Italy from a postcard pal in England.

As you see, it’s a senior dog rescue. It’s based in San Francisco, and I received this greeting as a donor to their wonderful cause. I also contribute to Old Friends, an organization in Tennessee that makes sure old pups have a happy home & great care. Follow them, and they will fill your Facebook feed with some really engaging personalities!

The remaining stamps: more nice ones here, and not to do too much more singling out, but I always love Malaysian stamps. Taiwanese, too.

Speaking of stamps, I just ordered a bunch more a day or two ago–and then today, I learned that there are new stamps coming out I really NEEDto buy!